FLOWER POWER
Chapter 2
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"SAM… SAM!"
Sam jumped up from his breakfast and charged along the corridor to Dean's room upon hearing his brother's frantic shouts.
"What?" he gasped as he skidded to a halt in the doorway.
"Look, Sam," Dean exclaimed; "it's Pedro!"
"What?"
Dean thrust the world's most spoiled pot of earth into Sam's face. Sam had to squint to see the miniscule green shoot which sat at the mathematical centre of the pot.
"That?" Sam groaned; "You nearly gave me heart failure for THAT?"
"But Sam, it's Pedro, look!"
Dean thrust the pot closer to Sam's face so he could get a better look at the speck of foliage.
"It's a bit small," Sam observed, clearly underwhelmed.
"Well, give him a chance, he's only just sprouted. Believe it or not, you were only a tiny little rugrat once."
Sam rolled his eyes; "fine, can I go back to my breakfast now?"
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Every day, for the next five days, Sam was treated to a by-the-hour account of Pedro's progress, and on the fifth day when Pedro stood all of an inch and a half tall (yes, Dean was actually measuring him – apparently with the ruler he steadfastly denied keeping by his bed) and actually sprouted something that looked like a little curly leaf, Sam thought Dean might actually explode.
It was on the sixth day that Pedro actually did something that interested Sam.
"Sam, uh … can you come in here, please?
Sam's head dropped to the table next to his half empty coffee cup with a dull thunk as Dean's voice echoed hollowly down the corridor.
"Sam, like, really … can you come in here? Sort of now?"
"I should have said yes to a goldfish," Sam gritted out through clenched teeth as he got up, stretched, and started to trudge the length of the bunker towards Dean's room.
"Okay Dean, I'm here … what, has he grown another quarter of an in…"
The words died on Sam's lips.
"What the everloving fu…? What the hell is that?"
"It's Pedro," Dean replied in a small voice.
The thing that filled Sam's least favourite pot of earth was now about six feet tall. It was part bulbous root ball bursting through the sides of the pot, and part fibrous green trunk-like structure at least as thick as a strong man's arm. Rising bolt upright out of the voluminous mess of shaggy green and brown tendrils at its crown was a long slimy stamen – Sam guessed based on his limited botanical knowledge – dripping something sticky, green and viscous (which Sam really, REALLY hoped was just sap) all over the floor.
It was, without question, the ugliest plant Sam had ever seen.
His mouth opened, his lips moved, but no words came out.
"He didn't look like that last night, Sam," Dean murmured, somewhat redundantly.
Sam scratched his head, and warily watched the tall green stamen swaying to and fro, moving hypnotically and slowly, like a cobra preparing to strike.
"I think Pedro needs a bigger pot," Dean ventured.
"Pot?" Sam snapped; "what that thing needs is a freaking flame thrower."
xxxxx
Together, the Winchesters, grasped Pedro's pot and manoeuvred him out of Dean's room. Although Dean was less inclined toward the road of Pedro's total obliteration that Sam was bent on, both men were in agreement that he should no longer reside in Dean's room.
Hell, Sam would be happy for Dean to have a hundred frigging goldfish compared to this fiasco.
As they carried the massive weight of soil, earthenware pot, and freaky big ugly plant down the corridor, Sam noticed the slimy stamen moving around, almost as if it was observing its surroundings. He kept his head down, out of its range, and tried to quicken his pace, not easy when carrying such a heavy burden.
Dean gasped as something slimy and cold touched his cheek, and slowly dragged its way up the side of his face, behind his ear. He yelped, shrugging spasmodically to try to dislodge the ticklish irritation.
"Knock it off, PedroooOOOOOH!" His voice rose to an embarrassingly high-pitched squeak as the slimy appendage dipped into his left ear.
"Sam, he snapped, dropping his side of the pot in shock; "the freaking plant's makin' out with me!"
Sam leapt aside to avoid a multiple toe amputation as the pot smashed to the ground, cracking in two with the force of the impact.
Both men stumbled backwards, their eyes never leaving the pile of wreckage which had once been pot, earth and ugly-freaking-bastard-plant, laying scattered where they fell across the bunker's floor.
Dean shuddered in revulsion as he fumbled for the hem of Sam's overshirt and began to use it to extract green plant goo out of his ear. "Ugh, that's disgusting…" he grumbled.
"You're disgusting," Sam snapped, his nose wrinkling in disgust as he snatched his shirt out of Dean's hands; "use your own clothes to explore your skanky earholes!"
"Damnit Sam, I got goddamn plant splooge in my ear, and I've gotta clean it out as soon as I can 'cus if I don't, I could end up with freakin' six-foot hairy tree monster babies growing out of my ear, and they'll probably eat my brain, and it'll be all your fault because you won't even let me use your …"
Dean's tirade trailed off into open-mouthed silence.
"Sam," he murmured flatly, staring over the younger Winchester's shoulder; "RUN."
"Dean…?"
"Less talking, more running," Dean whispered, backpedalling slowly whilst at the same time trying to grab Sam's wrist. Sam made the mistake of turning to look at what had spooked Dean so much, only to come face to … trunk with Pedro. Fully vertical and inching toward the two horrified men on his enormous spidery rootball.
"HOLY FREAKING SHIT!"
Both men recoiled as the giant slimy stamen shot out between their respective faces with a threatening hiss, spraying viscous green crud across their shirts. They both took this as their cue to turn tail and sprint.
"Sam, I think Pedro's pissed that we dropped him," Dean panted as the two men thundered down the corridor with the giant plant skittering heavily along the hall behind them, hissing and spraying green slime everywhere.
"You don't say," Sam replied breathlessly as he and Dean stumbled into the great hall and slammed the door closed behind them, pressing their combined weight against it to brace it against the onslaught of the giant plant attempting to hammer it down from the other side.
"I-I-I t-t-old you you should have let m-me have a g-g-oldfish…" Dean grunted as he fought to hold the rattling door closed.
"R-right now, you could h-h-have a freaking great white f-f-or all I care," snapped Sam in response.
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An hour later, with three armchairs, an occasional table and the giant telescope wedged against the straining, clattering door, the Winchesters felt confident enough to leave the doorway briefly to go and figure out what Pedro might actually be.
It was Sam that found the answer first.
"A triffid?" Dean exclaimed in disbelief; "we've got a goddamn triffid in the bunker?"
Sam spun the laptop around to show Dean. There on the screen was a picture of the same huge, untidy, profoundly ugly plant.
"Yep," Sam replied, po-faced; "Pedro is a triffid; a giant, walking, poison-spitting plant!"
"Ah, damn," Dean sighed; "I should have called him Travis."
"Really?" Sam groaned, flinching as the door reverberated under another heavy thud; "that's what you're taking from this?"
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tbc